The House Can Strengthen Criminal Justice Reform

Mon, Tue, Wed of this week (Nov. 13-15), the Massachusetts House will start voting on a comprehensive criminal justice reform. The House bill, as expected, is not as comprehensive or as progressive as the Senate bill.

It's vitally important representatives hear that you want to see a stronger billthat delivers on the promise of comprehensive criminal justice reform. Mass incarceration has proven socially a socially and economically damaging phenomenon, and it's time for Massachusetts to move beyond it.

Amendment #48 (Atkins), which requires decent cell conditions, good time eligibility, and access to programming for those in solitary confinement

Amendment #67 (Meschino), which eliminates cash bail for juveniles

Amendment #89 (Linsky), which would raise the level of what constitutes a felony to $1,500 in line with the Senate bill (as opposed to the House bill’s $750)

Amendment #112 (O’Day), which would track the savings from reduced prison populations and reinvest half of it in job training, job placement, and other supports to further reduce unemployment and recidivism (justice reinvestment)

Amendment #142 (Holmes), which provides for alternatives to incarceration for the primary caretakers of dependent children

Amendment #144 (Balser), which would strengthen the data collection for and limitations on the use of solitary confinement, and protects the rights of those in solitary confinement

Amendment #148 (Khan), which would raise the top age at which a young person is treated as a juvenile in the courts to 19, making far greater rehabilitation and support available to them

Amendment #124 (Jones), which strikes the CORI sealing provisions of the underlying bill

Amendment #126 (Jones), which strikes the increase in the felony threshold for larceny in the underlying bill

Amendment #127 (Jones) & #137 (Lyons), which give local law enforcement authority to hold people in custody based on a detainer from ICE.

Your outreach is URGENT and CRITICAL. Please, use your influence with your networks and talk them thru doing this, too, ASAP. We're trying to make it easy--but we need the numbers to be effective!

As the debate and voting begins...

We will track progress on Amendments and any roll call votes on the rubric below (with periodic updates).

To get a good primer on how Amendment Activism works (and how the system works to keep you in the dark about this important opportunity for advocacy), take a look at our rundown of the recent votes in the Senate for criminal legal system reforms: progressivemass.com/cjr-senate-miniscorecard)